Popcorn fun but nothing really special

Rating: Null/10 (2 June 2003)

After an animal liberation-front releases a bunch of chimpanzees that are infected with a very contagious disease which spreads through blood and saliva, the population of England is in great danger. Everybody who's infected becomes an violent and angry 'monster' that coughs up infected blood (and move pretty fast too!) Infections occure in about 20 seconds. So it spreads pretty quick. 28 days later. A bike courier wakes up from a coma to find himself in an empty hospital. He has no idea what happened and wanders the streets of a deserted London.
He catches up with a few survivors and they have to find a safe place to live 'till the end of days because the 'infected' are roaming the streets wiping out the human race where-ever they go.
It's an enjoyable movie. The images are descent. (love the deserted London shots, Worth the rental alone) But nothing i haven't seen before. What surprises me is that a lot of people think the story is original which is not. Ofcourse this movie borrows heavily from genre-classics such as Dawn of the dead but more accurate Day of the dead and also The Crazies. All movies by George A. Romero. So really nothing spectaculair or surprising new stuff here.
The idea of a man waking up to find himself in a deserted place or at least safe from the creatures that now inhabit the world is taken from Day of the Triffids. So what you have is a movie that is constructed with al this cool ideas taken from other movies and stories. Of course you can screw it up but luckily Boyle doesn't. It's all in good fun. But not groundbreaking. Gotta admire the DV-camerawork. And the idea of filming on DV. I love movies like this. Just as long nobody keeps yelling that 'it's so original' or 'the best movie of the year'. It's not. At least that's my opinion. But a good time-waster? Yes indeed.